Boeing Asks FAA to Approve Test Flights With Dreamliner

A damaged battery case from a Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner sits at the National Transportation Safety Board materials laboratory in Washington, D.C., as regulators and Boeing are still trying to determine what caused the battery fire on one jet and a cockpit warning that spurred an emergency landing by another. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co. asked the U.S. Federal
Aviation Administration for approval to resume test flights with
the 787 Dreamliner while the plane remains grounded during an
investigation of battery faults.

The FAA was still considering that request today, said an
agency official, who asked not to be identified because the
details aren’t yet public. The planemaker would operate any such
flights with existing test aircraft, Marc Birtel, a company
spokesman, said yesterday in a telephone interview.

Flying test planes would let Boeing study the Dreamliner’s
lithium-ion power packs while the 50 787s in service stay
parked. Regulators and Boeing are still trying to determine what
caused a battery fire on one jet and a cockpit warning that
spurred an emergency landing by another, which in turn triggered
grounding orders worldwide on Jan. 16.

“Flight tests are the best way to get to the root cause,”
Stephen Levenson, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in New
York, said today in a note to investors. Levenson, who rates the
shares as a buy, said he expects the FAA to approve the flights.

Boeing rose 0.9 percent to $75.89 at the close in New York.
That pared the stock’s decline to 2.3 percent since Jan. 4, the
last trading day before the battery fire, compared with a 3.1
percent gain for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

‘Under Evaluation’

The planemaker “has submitted an application to conduct
test flights and it is currently under evaluation by the FAA,”
Birtel said in an e-mail. He wouldn’t say when or where Chicago-based Boeing might conduct any tests, or with how many planes.

Boeing, which has its commercial hub in Seattle and also
builds 787s in North Charleston, South Carolina, performed
thousands of hours of tests on the six-jet development fleet
before the plane’s 2011 commercial debut.

Safety officials outside the U.S. joined the FAA’s order to
airlines to park their Dreamliners following a fire in the
lithium-ion power pack of a Japan Airlines Co. 787 in Boston and
a battery warning on an All Nippon Airways Co. flight that
forced an emergency landing.

Those directives marooned some 787s far from airlines’
bases. State-run Air India was allowed to fly Dreamliners to
Mumbai for maintenance after its six 787s were scattered, with
four in Delhi and one each in Chennai and Bangalore, Director
General of Civil Aviation Arun Mishra said.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said federal
regulators would wait until the battery probe is complete before
allowing any test flights for Boeing production aircraft or so-called ferry flights to let airlines reposition any stranded
Dreamliners.

“There’s a focus on the batteries and we’re going to
continue to let the people doing the investigation finish their
work,” LaHood told reporters before touring the Washington Auto
Show.